1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to mesh networks and, more particularly, to improving or optimizing communications among nodes of a mesh network.
2. Related Art
The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
In recent years, the use of wireless mesh networks has increased in order to improve the range of wireless communications while reducing power consumption. Wireless mesh networks typically include a plurality of wireless mesh nodes that communicate with one another to route data. For example, in wireless multi-hop mesh networks, data is propagated from a source mesh node, or an originating mesh node, to a destination mesh node by “hopping” from one mesh node to another until the data reaches the destination mesh node. As such, each mesh node within a wireless mesh network operates as both a receiver and transmitter to communicate data between intervening mesh nodes within a given route. A wireless mesh network having a substantial number of mesh nodes within range (i.e., geographic proximity enabling the effective communication of data) of each other is known as a “dense” wireless mesh network.
A mesh node may periodically groupcast a request frame, such as a probe request, to a group of other mesh nodes (peer nodes) within the mesh network. By groupcasting the group-addressed request frame, the mesh node may be broadcast or multicast to a select group of mesh nodes. The probe request typically triggers a response, such as a probe response, from each neighboring node (i.e., peer node within range). In other words, each mesh node within the network that “hears” the probe request will generate and transmit a probe response. Generally, each mesh node that receives the groupcast frame typically retransmits the groupcast frame in order to relay the frame to peer nodes out of range.
Consequently in dense wireless mesh networks having a substantial number of mesh nodes within range of each other, several neighboring nodes may simultaneously generate and transmit a response frame based on a single request frame. Furthermore, as noted above, each of these neighboring nodes typically retransmit the received request frame which, particularly in dense wireless mesh networks, results in redundant request frames being received by each of the neighboring nodes.
As a result, the performance of dense wireless mesh networks suffers due to collisions occurring among the numerous response frames and collisions between retransmission attempts as well as due to the inefficient use of network resources based on redundant transmissions.